Actually I took the advice on the Dominator's over the Tyrants I've tried before and I'm finding them better in CQC or atleast seeming to get better results. I do have another question for the math guru's out there. Which is better in terms of damage potential, termie lightning strike or board actions with marine favor and maxed out ratings?

Demoulius wrote:The IN can do CQC quite well actually. On one of my admirals I run a Dictator and Gothic pair and they completly wreck faces against most foes that I face. Against Orks I try to soften them up abit before I move in for the kill, never fight your enemies on their terms!

A brawling Gothic...mother of god. While I see your logic with using upgraded lances to take down shields, I'm still pretty confident a Tyrant would suit the playstyle better. In a brawl, it still has the torp shotgun, but its AP macrocannons would have far higher dps and would take down shields faster anyway.

Gothic vs shields: ((12/12) x 4 lances) + 50% damage to shields = 6 dps against shields, or in other words the equivalent of a single regular macro battery which with 80% accuracy at close range is going to hit almost as often as the lances.

For the record, I'm not attempting to call your playstyle wrong or anything like that. Its just that for what you describe as your tactics there seems to be a far more viable option. Theres a reason people think the Gothic is underpowered or just plain shit, its just outclassed in every way except accuracy at medium distance.

Well its simple really. I play 2vs2 mostly. You can take a dictator and a Gothic at 300 points. You cant take a Dictator and a Tyrant for 300 points

And youd be suprised at how rapidly a gothic can strip shields actually. It has the range upgrade as well IIRC so both ships can reach out at range. Its just that sooner rather then later I end up in CQC and tbh the ships dont suffer for it, at all.

Demoulius wrote:Well its simple really. I play 2vs2 mostly. You can take a dictator and a Gothic at 300 points. You cant take a Dictator and a Tyrant for 300 points

And youd be suprised at how rapidly a gothic can strip shields actually. It has the range upgrade as well IIRC so both ships can reach out at range. Its just that sooner rather then later I end up in CQC and tbh the ships dont suffer for it, at all.

Ohhh, I'd completely forgotten to take points into consideration. Yeah, I see where you're coming from now. Even if the Gothic is underpowered, its definitely better than a Tyrant you can't actually take due to points.

I'm not really surprised at how fast a Gothic can strip shields with the upgrades, its just that in close quarters a macrocannon armed vessel will do it quicker no matter what. With the range upgrades though, and against crappy Ork shields, a guaranteed hit lance salvo is definitely more reliable than cannons, even if it does take two salvos.

1vs1 and 2vs2 ship selections will probably differ inmensely. I gotta say that the few times that I do play 1vs1 my ships dont work as well as they do in 2vs2. Mostly because I decided on upgrades and ships to choose depending on my 2vs2 ally

PapaHoth wrote:Which is better in terms of damage potential, termie lightning strike or board actions with marine favor and maxed out ratings?

Bear in mind that Ratings are purely defensive: they don't help your boarding actions.

The typical Troop Value of a Space Marine ship is 70; potentially it goes up to +9 from Space Marine crew, +5 from Chapter Relic, and maybe another +6 from Chapter Master. That means potentially up to 90 Troop Value, albeit only ever on one ship. Even without Chapter Master, it means high level Space Marine ships have potentially 84 Troop Value -- which is impressive indeed.

The main point here is that there is a larger variability in Space Marine Troop Value than any other faction, I believe, so you really need to check what your enemy's ships are like when deciding whether to do a Lightning Strike or a Boarding Action.

Then on your side, as you probably know, Terminator Lightning Strike was changed from being two assault dice, to being a single assault dice at -10 enemy Troop Value. You can still upgrade it with an extra Teleportarium, however, rolling two dice at -10 Troop Value. That's actually not so bad. Your Boarding Actions will be rolling three dice for a light cruiser, four dice for a cruiser/battlecruiser, or five dice for a battleship.

Okay, so let's do a median example: one cruiser vs. one cruiser. One scenario at TV 70, the other at TV84.

Scenario 1: TV 70Terminator Lightning Strike: You're rolling one dice vs TV 60, so you have a 40% chance of inflicting a hit (which is then split between fire/hull breach or temporary crit). Or, to give it a weighting, an average of 0.4 hits per action.Terminator Lightning Strike with Extra Teleportarium: You're rolling two dice vs. TV 60, so you have a 16% chance of inflicting two hits and a 48% chance of inflicting one hit. That's about 0.8 hits per action.Boarding Action: with 4 dice as a cruiser with the Space Marine Favour. However, you're rolling against an effective TV of 82 -- the base 70 +12 from Turrets against a boarding action. That means each individual dice only has an 18% chance of success.

That means you have: 0.105% chance of scoring 4 hits, 1.913% chance of scoring 3 hits, 13.071% chance of scoring 2 hits, 39.698% of scoring 1 hits. That actually weighs to an average of 0.72 crits, which is pretty decent -- although hidden behind that number is the fact that you might just get wildly lucky and get that one-in-a-thousand quadruple critical. Also, those crits are split between fire/hull breach, temporary criticials and permanent crits.

Anyway, in this scenario, it's clear: unless you took the Extra Teleportarium, Lightning Strike is decidedly inferior to Boarding Actions.

Scenario 2: TV 84, i.e. Chapter Relic and full Space MarinesTerminator Lightning Strike: You're rolling one dice vs TV 74, so you have a 26% chance of inflicting a hit (which is then split between fire/hull breach or temporary crit). Or, 0.26 hits per action.Terminator Lightning Strike with Extra Teleportarium: You're rolling two dice vs. TV 74, so you have a 6.76% chance of inflicting two hits and a 38.48% chance of inflicting one hit. Still, 0.52 hits per action.Boarding Action: again with 4 dice. However, in this scenario, the effective TV of the cruiser is an incredible 96 thanks to its Turrets, meaning each dice has a mere 4% chance of success.

That means you have: a negligible chance of getting 4 crits (seriously, it's like 1 chance in 390,625); 0.021% of getting 3 hits; 0.646% of getting 2 hits; and 8.822% of getting 1 hit. Even with weighting taken into account, the average crit per action is merely 0.102 hits or so.

So in this scenario you're much better off using a Lightning Strike even if you don't have the Extra Teleportarium. Heck, in this scenario you'd be better off using Lightning Strike, period. High TV ships with lots of Turrets get an abominably high effective TV rating against Boarding Actions.